Masquerade
| |||||||||||||
 Menasor crush...destroy knockoff. | |||||||||||||
| "Masquerade" | |||||||||||||
| Production code | 700-63 | ||||||||||||
| Production company | Sunbow Productions | ||||||||||||
| Airdate | December 16, 1985 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Donald F. Glut | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Generation 1 cartoon continuity | ||||||||||||
After defeating the Stunticons, five of the Autobots pose as the crazed combiners to learn of Megatron's newest plan.
- Japanese title: マスカレード (Masquerade)
- German Generation 2 title: "Perfekte Tarnung" ("Perfect Disguise")
- Italian title, dub 1: I falsi Stunticons ("The fake Stunticons")
- Italian title, dub 2: Sotto copertura ("Undercover")
Synopsis
Megatron sends the Stunticons on a mission to find components for an unrevealed purpose, including the world's largest, most perfect ruby. While searching for their components, the actions of the Stunticons catch the attention of the Autobots, who track their movements and their crimes. Breakdown and Wildrider get the first component: laser lenses from a scientist. Dead End and Drag Strip get the second component: an experimental generator from the Army. Motormaster gets the last one: a perfect ruby from a museum.
The Autobots split into teams and manage to be extremely effective at capturing the Stunticons in the middle of their capers. Grapple, Hoist, and Inferno take on Breakdown and Wildrider. Warpath and Tracks take on Dead End and Drag Strip. Finally, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Blaster, and Spike Witwicky go for Motormaster, who challenges the Autobot leader to a game of “chicken” and ends up in a head-on collision. Spike, Bumblebee, and Blaster peer through the dust to see who survived, and it turns out that Optimus is the clear victor with merely a minor headache, while Motormaster lies in a wreck.
Although all five Stunticons have been captured, the Autobots still don’t know what their plans were for the components they stole for Megatron. Wheeljack guesses that the parts are going to be made into a weapon. (Nooo, really?) Optimus hatches a scheme to disguise Autobots using camouflage paint and penetrate the Decepticon camp disguised as Stunticons: Optimus Prime as Motormaster, Jazz as Dead End, Sideswipe as Breakdown, Mirage as Drag Strip, and Windcharger as Wildrider.
The disguised Autobots infiltrate the Decepticons, although their arrival causes some raised eyebrows because they are driving too "safely". They deliver the stolen components to Megatron without being detected.
Back at the Autobot base, the Stunticons manage to shimmy and shake their way out of their cells, merge into Menasor and overcome their Autobot captors. They then head back to the Decepticon base.
The Constructicons complete Megatron’s new weapon, and he reveals its power, but just then Menasor arrives and declares the Autobots as infiltrators. Using Windcharger’s electric field ability and Mirage’s illusion power, the Autobots merge into their own Menasor. The two giants battle it out, and the Autobots are overcome. Megatron trains the new weapon on the Autobots, but the device blows up in his face after a few scattered shots.
Autobot reinforcements arrive, and the Decepticons flee without their usual promises for revenge. It is revealed that Ironhide had made adjustments to the ruby back at Autobot HQ, which caused the device to explode. The Autobots head for home, victorious.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Quotes
"A near miss deserves a couple o' near-missiles!"
- —Inferno
"I'll probably hate myself in the morning, but..."
- —Inferno before he douses the flames on the Stunticon Breakdown
"Blam! Boom! Pow! I'll make that hot rod even hotter. HA HA HA!"
- —Warpath firing on the Stunticons Dead End and Drag Strip
"Well, look who's here! The old King of the Road! When I'm finished with ya, you'll be King of the Junkyard!"
- —Motormaster taunting Optimus Prime into a game of chicken
"You did it! You did it, Optimus! You stuffed that loudmouth once and for all."
"I...hope so, Spike, because I'd hate to go through that again."
- —Spike congratulates a shaken Optimus as he recovers from a head-on collision with Motormaster.
[The Autobots are towing the defeated Stunticons to the Ark]
Wheeljack: Here they come.
Ratchet: I won't bother asking who won.
Breakdown: (taking note of the Autobots looking at them) They're gawking at us! How mortifrying!
Dead End: The word, Breakdown, is mortiFYing, my sentiment exactly.
Motormaster: I'm in no mood for your big words, Dead End.
Ironhide: For you, Motormouth, this IS a dead end.
- —Motormaster complains about Dead End's SAT-level vocabulary
"Man, Optimus. You're a dead ringer for Motormaster."
"Did you have to say dead ringer, Spike?"
- —Spike Witwicky's vocabulary causes Optimus Prime to wince.
"All right, then...ah...Stunticons, let's roll for it. "
- —Optimus Prime disguises as Motormaster.
"Everybody out on bad behavior!"
- —Breakdown after freeing himself and taking out Inferno, Grapple, and Hoist.
"Imagine my turning that ray on the Autobots' headquarters. Perhaps when it's gone, someone will put up a memorial parking lot. Mwahaha!"
Megatron
"Machine appears unstable. Suggest abandoning it."
"Suggestion noted—and ignored!"
- —Soundwave warns Megatron, for all the good it does.
Notes
Animation or technical glitches
- Early on, the Stunticons land on a beach and each of them kicks up sand when they land. A few moments later, they transform and drive off, and no sand is disturbed by their tires.
- Ratchet's voice actor in this episode is Wally Burr, not the usual Don Messick, and it shows. Burr uses the same generic deep voice he used for Thundercracker in "War Dawn" and Jazz in "Kremzeek!".
- Motormaster somehow transforms into (a tiny) truck mode while still inside the museum. Also, a moment later as he drives away, he has a dark gray stripe on his trailer that shouldn't be there.
- As Tracks goes into flight mode, the sandy beach suddenly has squares on it for one shot (as if it were pavement).
- As Motormaster comes into view before the crash with Prime, his bumper extends to the sides of his trailer rather than the sides of his cab.
- After the crash, just before Optimus transforms into robot mode, his cab's grille is missing the vertical line in the middle. His subsequent transformation looks very crude, especially around his legs.
- Blaster contacts the other Autobots and his chest lights up, but during Warpath's report it's no longer flashing.
- Optimus strokes his faceplate during the discussion of the Stunticons' plans, and his finger disappears for a moment.
- The broadcast of the doctor's announcement shows a building with the word "OPTCS" behind him. Earlier it was correctly shown as "REPUBLIC OPTICS COMPANY".
- The doctor's bow tie has grown to twice the size when he appears on TV.
- As Optimus gets his idea after watching the broadcast, the triangles on his waist are gray instead of yellow.
- When approaching the crater, Jazz appears to be driving above and not under rocks.
- "Looks like Megatron is trying to outdo his worst." His worst what, Optimus?
- As Laserbeak returns to Soundwave, Soundwave is missing his Decepticon insignia.
- As "Motormaster" (Optimus) drives up to Megatron, his door is colored purple like his windows. A shot later, it's back to black, but the next shot (Starscream asking about his voice) shows his grille as black instead of gray. The same thing happens as the real Motormaster busts out of the Autobot cell.
- As a result of animation cels being stacked incorrectly, Ratchet appears teeny-tiny in the front of a crowd shot, making Ironhide look colossal by comparison. The tiny Ratchet should, of course, be (barely visible) at the back of the crowd.
- When the real Menasor takes off to warn Megatron, he has a purpleAutobot insignia.
- As Bumblebee says, "Great Cybertron," Spike is mouthing the words.
- Just after dismissing the Constructicons, Megatron's face is white.
- As "Motormaster" (Optimus) asks about the weapon, Megatron's forehead colors are reversed (black forehead with gray triangles).
- As "Motormaster" (Optimus) says, "Too many head-on collisions!," his headlights are black instead of white.
- The Autobot Menasor gets knocked to the ground, but one who delivers "The generator..." line in Optimus' voice is the one standing up (with the sky behind him).
- When Megatron first grabs the laser, he's colored in reverse (light gray body with a dark gray face).
- When "Motormaster" reverts back to Optimus Prime, his headlights aren't colored white and he's missing the horizontal lines on the crest of his helmet.
- When the Autobots begin firing on Menasor, his face is entirely black.
- Just before Megatron fires the laser, Windcharger is miscoloured in green and gray (with yellow stripes on his arms, like Hound).
Continuity errors
- During their construction in “The Key to Vector Sigma”, Megatron notes that he has outfitted the Stunticons with “automatic force fields that make their hulls impenetrable”, which accounts for how well they did in battle. Yet in this episode they are easily taken down by second string Autobots, including non-fighters such as Grapple & Hoist. Warpath even manages to simply punch right through Dead-end! Clearly they have been skimping on their scheduled maintenance.
- The Autobots account for their ability to merge (Windcharger's magnetic field) and for the fake Menasor's face (Mirage's hologram). But where do they get working hands for their fake Menasor?
- Although both are similar in size, Motormaster's transforming method greatly differs from Optimus Prime's transforming method, yet during the episode, after donning the disguise, Optimus transforms exactly like Motormaster does.
- After the Stunticons were captured, Breakdown stated that their vehicular modes are busted, yet after Wildrider frees the Stunticons, they all start driving out of their cells.
- The Stunticons were still heavily damaged and not repaired after being captured and placed in the cells, yet they were able to not only form Menasor and take on several Autobots at the Ark, but fly and battle the 5 Autobots disguised at Stunticons with near invulnerability (and a cool sword that appears out of nowhere)?
Sci-Fi Channel edits
- In the mid-1990s, many G1 episodes were aired on the SciFi Network. To allow expanded advertising time, they were edited down, cutting "unnecessary" dialog and scenes out. Some of the "unnecessary" dialog cut from this episode included parts of Grapple and Inferno's lines, resulting in them collectively uttering "Time to add firobably hate myself in the morning, but..."
Continuity notes
- Gadgets and powers:
- Soundwave can fly in his tape deck mode! When the Decepticons retreat, he transforms and then flies off behind Starscream. It is tempting to assume that the animators took a script direction like "the Decepticons transform and fly off in retreat" a bit too literally.
- Mirage can project a hologram of Menasor's face. This runs contrary to his usual schtick, which is invisibility. His original bio described him as being able to create "the illusion of a different appearance" for up to six minutes, but this is the only time it pops up in the cartoon (presumably because holograms were Hound's gimmick... though per the bio, Hound's great power is to create maps, and simple images on rare occasions.)
- Megatron's line "Suggestion noted...AND IGNORED!" when Soundwave warns him would be revisited during the Beast Wars episode "Nemesis Part 2" when his namesake utters those exact sentiments to Dinobot II on board the Nemesis.
- Two scenes deleted from this episode feature the individual Stunticons talking with each other while combined as Menasor, only for Menasor himself to then silence all of his components, because their chatter is confusing him!
Trivia
- In case you missed it, the Autobots chosen to impersonate the Stunticons aren't random, but based pretty specifically on alternate mode. Although the specific models don't line up, Prime and Motormaster both transform into semi trucks, Jazz and Dead End are both Porsches, Breakdown and Sideswipe are Lamborghinis, Mirage and Drag Strip are both race cars (albeit very different-looking ones), and.... weeeeell, Windcharger's a Pontiac Firebird and Wildrider's a Ferrari, but the plot demanded Windcharger for his magnetic abilities. Indeed, given this attention to detail, it's not infeasible to think that the plot of this episode may have originally called for the Autobots to simply have their alternate modes painted, since they consistently refrain from transforming once in the Decepticon camp.
- A coincidence or not, Classics Menasor is a redeco from Legends of Cybertron Optimus Prime, while Universe Drag Strip is made from Classics Mirage redeco. At one point there was intended to be a Binaltech Wildrider created from Alternators Windcharger (or rather, his Binaltech counterpart), but that never eventuated. IDW Publishing used Universe Sideswipe as a basis for a new version of Breakdown, and the toy's mold was used for the BotCon 2010 G2 Breakdown! We bet Dead End feels really miserable about being left out, but then, that's Dead End fer ya. Oh wait a minute.....
Home video releases
- VHS
1990 — Transformers — Cosmic Rust / Masquerade (Tempo Video)
- Laserdisc
1995 — Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers — Megatron Set (Takara) — Japanese audio only.
1999 — The Transformers — Decepticon Edition (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
- DVD
2001 — The Transformers — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Rhino Entertainment)
2003 — The Original Transformers — Season 2 Part 2: Vol. 8 (Rhino Entertainment)
2004 — Transformers — Season 2 Part 2 (Metrodome)
2004 — Transformers — Collection 3: Series 2.2 (Madman Entertainment)
2006 — Transformers — The Complete Generation One Collection (Metrodome)
2007 — The Transformers — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — Transformers — Volume 06: Stagione Due Parte Quarta (Medianetwork Communication) — English and Italian audio.
2009 — Transformers — Season Two: Part Two (Metrodome)
2009 — The Transformers — Complete Collection: Decepticon Edition (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers — The Complete Series: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Collection (Shout! Factory)
2009 — The Transformers — Season Two, Volume Two: 25th Anniversary Edition (Shout! Factory)
